


Soon you'll be the one who is forgotten

by crookedspoon



Series: Spicing up the Autumn 2017 [25]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Constipation, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, POV Skov, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 15:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12728910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Skov is not used to dealing with the fallout of their parties.





	Soon you'll be the one who is forgotten

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galateaofthewestside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galateaofthewestside/gifts).



> For the Halloween Mini Round at rounds-of-kink and Day #30 "Crying" at Kinktober, though this just using the theme of "(not) crying" rather than the love of crying/watching someone cry, because I fail. Also, this is not kinky unless angst is your kink.
> 
> The initial idea I had for the Crying prompt has been flipped on its head and pushed to the margins, because that's how it goes when I'm blocked. Yeah, I'm back on that stuff. So I have no idea if this is at all coherent.

Skov is not used to dealing with the fallout of their parties. Often enough, _he_ is the fallout, because while he's perfectly capable of holding his liquor, there's always some douchebag (meaning Jiang) who messes with the ratio of his mixed drinks and keeps topping them up with the strong stuff. Not to mention that he's usually the first to try out Kavinsky's new designer drugs, unless he's already given Proko a sample, which he usually has, going by the way Proko is tripping, literally and figuratively. (Hell yeah, Skov knows what those words mean. He once had a snobbish girlfriend he was trying to impress.)

In any case, he's rarely conscious enough for the cleanup and finds himself waking up hours later in a trash can or buried beneath garbage bags by the side of the road with a bottle of water shoved down his pants. Thanks, guys. Your love and care is really appreciated.

He prefers the summer parties when there's no damage control to be done and no parental units to be feared – not because they're so scary or hold much power, but because no one wants them turning up halfway through and embarrassing the hell out of their son, the host. Skov would rather die than let that happen. His parents are the worst, with their good-natured hippie shit and giving Skov "the space he needs to express himself." Fuck that shit. Like he needs their approval. Jiang claims to be a contender for the spot as the one with the worst parents because to hear him say it, Skov's have nothing on his. But he's just sensitive about being emasculated in front of his peers, so his opinion doesn't count.

In summer, they can avoid all that crap. They just take it outside where no one can bother them.

But no matter how many cars you lit up on the drag strip, you couldn't get girls to show up in Halloween costumes this time of year. Unless they dress up as polar explorers or something equally buttoned-up. And that's no fun. If girls are to show up, they better do so in clothes appropriate for a party. He wants to see more than just pretty faces.

Though there's always plenty to see even without any girls around. 

One year, Kavinsky decided it would be a great idea to dress up as Leatherface and swing an actual, working chainsaw around. Cue lots of screaming and screeching and demolished upholstery. Skov still hasn't figured out which entity Kavinsky's sold his soul to, because not a single one of their guests lost so much as a limb. Which is not to say there wasn't a bit of blood lost. But it was only some dumb kid from a town over who'd been too wasted to know where he was going and ended up with a flesh wound. Nothing major. Gave some people a scare, but not enough to leave. The complimentary drugs at the party were too good to pass up. Skov can relate.

If you're going to one of K's parties you already know they're a recipe for disaster and that you're in for anything but boredom.

Last year, his theme seemed to be less murderous, but it was still all about shocking people. Or more like shocking people who don't know him. Because when Proko went around asking if anyone had seen K and then started screaming at the sight of K floating face-down in the pool, Skov knew this was staged. Still, he humored them both and helped drag him out. K might just drown himself to prove a point – kind of like, poor him, nobody cared enough to jump in after him, boohoo. Shit like that.

Although Proko would jump from higher ground with fewer chances of saving K. Not that the bastard cared about that. Sometimes it's like Proko doesn't even exist for him; that's how much he takes him for granted. Occasionally, Skov just wants to punch him for that disrespect, but he'd rather do without the drama – and Kavinsky? Fuck, he's all about the drama. Doesn't have anything else going for in his life, so who can blame him? (Skov can, but he's quiet and resentful about it, admitting it only to himself, and maybe Swan, because Swan's already too old for any of K's bullshit.)

So there K was, pretending to be a floater, and here Skov was, giving him a chest massage, because goddamn, this first-aid shit is coming to him naturally. A small, worried crowd had gathered around them, wringing their useless hands and murmuring about what happened and whether K – who had the drowned body-look down pat – would make it. That is, worried about where else they could get a fix should K no longer be around to provide it for them.

Such are the friends K has been curating. Skov would know. He's not much different. When K spit water into his eye, Skov briefly considered drowning K for real, because the fucking sting was for real, but K would probably have welcomed it. And Skov was and is not in the business of doing favors for idiots like K.

"How are you going to stage your death next year?" he'd asked him later, offhandedly but with a touch of annoyance, because he he still wanted to slap Kavinsky around. "If you want it to have more effect, maybe don't do it on Halloween. Everyone's expecting it."

Proko had looked a little ill then, as if he'd known K to take that advice to heart. That was back when Proko still had facial expressions that went beyond constantly strung-out. Skov supposes one of K's colorful chemical cocktails must have permanently broken something essential inside of him.

Skov vividly remembers the meltdown Proko had when his brother died in a car crash.

"It's not fair," he cried, both with a broken voice and with actual tears. "It should've been me."

Skov had been taken aback by this display. He himself wouldn't have been able to scrounge up that much emotion had it been his sister who died. But then again, she'd been having epileptic seizures since she was a runt, so Skov had already been acquainted with the fear of losing someone close to him.

Perhaps that's why he hates Kavinsky's melodrama. Hated. That shit's gone now. It finally cost him. He finally got what he'd been after for so long.

Skov is still not crying. 

He never got used to dealing with the fallout of their parties. And now he doesn't have to. Maybe he never wanted to be around to pick up the pieces, because somehow he knew this was how it was going to end one day. Though he'd always suspected K to die unceremoniously in a pool of his own vomit and himself to be the one to find him. He didn't expect K to become his own grand finale, but in retrospect it seems only fitting for him to go out like a glorified pyrotechnician.

Fuck. And Proko had to go join him, as though he'd known K finally made it to the other side, and didn't want to leave him even in death. Who knows, perhaps they'd made a pact. Proko had always been a follower, but he'd made the mistake of throwing in his lot with Kavinsky, just as Skov had. K wasn't only a dealer of drugs, he was a drug himself, and once you were hooked, it was game over. Skov can't imagine meeting another person who mixes raging asshole with the most fun Skov's ever had to such an intoxicating compound.

Pain is roaring inside him and his eyes are burning, but he's too angry to cry. Even at the best of times, he'd had to have the tears beaten out of him. It's why he'd asked Swan to teach him to fight: so he'd have a steady supply of punches coming his way that he could cash in whenever he needed them.

Jiang pitched in to help, too, because he has a bottomless bag of anger and not enough chances to empty it. Skov welcomes any attention that leaves him too hurt to feel. His blows are vicious and they split skin, but even they are not enough to crack the shell of hatred and disgust that has calcified around his grief.

There have been Halloween parties this year, of course there have been. Life goes on, after all, and who remembers Kavinsky now that the summer is over and the dull drudgery of school life has begun again? K had never been an overwhelming presence in class. Anyone who knew him has moved on to another supplier of good times and is well on their way of forgetting he ever existed in the first place.

It pisses him the fuck off that nobody cares. Pisses him off even more that _he_ does. Somehow. Even though he's like the rest, buying from some other clown because he can't stand to be inside his own head.

Because a needle is pretty much the only thing that helps him escape the pressure of choking on his anger, his grief, and his unshed tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Forgotten" by Spineshank.
> 
> Tumblr post for reblogging convenience can be found [here](https://crookedspoonfic.tumblr.com/post/167565919705/kinktober-day-29-crying).


End file.
